Psychic Phenomena

Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World by Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. Dunne (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $27.95; 415 pages) "I hope I never see a flying saucer," a friend of mine once told me. "And I certainly hope I never go for a ride in one." "Why not?" I wondered. "Because," he said, "I don't want everybody to think I'm crazy." This conversation came to mind while reading "Margins of Reality" by Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J.

The legend of the ghost of the Hotel del Coronado has been floating around the landmark seaside resort ever since the mysterious death of a woman garbed in black more than 110 years ago. The famous hotel near San Diego, a glamorous stopover for kings and presidents, isn't the only one with a resident ghost. The Hollywood Roosevelt supposedly has at least two -- Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift.

1. PLUM CANYON Saugus Plum Canyon, a long, narrow rock crevice in Saugus that runs from Vasquez Canyon to Bouquet Canyon Road, is reportedly where a small contingent of Spanish soldiers were ambushed and slain in 1821 by Native Americans during the war between Spain and Mexico. Repeated stories of Spanish ghosts and strange happenings in the canyon keep the tale alive. Since the mid-19th Century, in a spot a little to the west, between Bouquet and Mint canyons, the quiet, unassuming ghost of a Spanish woman in a light satin dress and blue shawl has reportedly been spotted floating along the path.

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and director of the Skeptics Society, has an idea for a TV show that would debunk psychics, faith healers and other mysterious phenomena that he deems a fraud or simply explainable in less-than-supernatural terms. So far, no one has bitten. And surveying the TV landscape, it's not hard to understand why--the strange and unexplained having been very, very good to television, providing scant incentive to suggest otherwise.

James (The Amazing) Randi used to be content escaping Houdini-style from locks and straitjackets while suspended over a Manhattan boulevard. But with the rise of popularity in all things paranormal in the '60s--from UFO sightings to Uri Geller bending spoons--Randi began a crusade to show that paranormal claims were nothing more than the results of the kind of magic tricks he learned long ago as a teen-age student of magician Harry Blackstone.

I have had much success in the field of psychic vision, as the reader may remember, by predicting against the occurrence of anything predicted by professional seers. It is my theory that they are all fakes, that they are all wrong about 99% of the time, and that if you simply counterpredict their predictions, you can hardly go wrong.

The Orange County psychic who counseled Robert L. Citron for 15 years said Tuesday that she told the former Orange County treasurer she didn't feel he would be sentenced to prison. Jeannie Smith, 63, said Citron never asked her for investment advice, even as he continued to consult her after interest rates plunged in 1994, causing a $1.64-billion loss in the county investment pool that he managed and forcing the county into bankruptcy.

"I've been trying to locate my father for 17 years," said a caller to Joe Puccio's "Future Predictions" program on radio station KFI-AM (640). "I was wondering if maybe you think I might find him." "I get something that looks to me more like a Southwestern state," Puccio immediately answered. "It could be Texas, New Mexico, Arizona . . . where there's a lot of bareness. But I think it will be a couple more years before you stumble on a clue.

There was good news last week for those who seek the tools to get in touch with their unlimited beings and to tap into the energy of the universal psychic team. An MIT graduate, who also happens to be a Burbank native, came home for an evening to share the fruit of his studies--the simple, step-by-step techniques that he has developed to help people raise themselves from the physical to the psychic plane of experience. Pete Sanders Jr.

Einstein is said to have dabbled in dowsing, soldiers have been known to use coat hangers to detect enemy mines, and now it appears that real estate investors are gravitating to dowsing techniques. This ancient practice may well be the most common and accepted part of the psychic field because it shows results on a fairly consistent basis.

While making "The Omen," the 1976 horror thriller, producer Harvey Bernhard wore a Coptic cross on the set for protection. Bob Munger, an advertising executive who'd brought him the concept of the arrival of the antichrist in the form of a cherubic-looking young boy named Damien, had warned Bernhard that "things were going to happen" of a distinct satanic bent on the set. "He warned us that he thought the devil didn't want us to make the picture," recalls Bernhard.

A memorable episode of "The X-Files" featured a serial killer who preyed upon psychics and fortunetellers. "You really should have seen this coming," he says, almost apologetically, as he descends on one of his victims. While psychics and spiritual mediums may provide a good laugh to skeptics, they are also big business, as the proliferation of late-night TV gurus such as Kenny Kingston and Miss Cleo demonstrates.

Is Halloween getting scarier? More people apparently believe in ghosts and witches than two decades ago. A third of the people surveyed in a new Gallup Poll said they believe in ghosts, three times the number that said that two decades ago. One in five said they believe in witches, twice the rate of the late 1970s. The telephone poll of 1,005 adults, taken Oct. 21-24, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

January 24, 1999 | PAUL LIEBERMAN, Paul Lieberman, a Times staff writer, last wrote on Doris Duke and her butler for the magazine. Times researcher Tere Petersen also contributed to this article

James Van Praagh promises us one hell of a heaven. It's a place with forests and flowers and lakes and boats, and beautiful mansions, too. It's a place where the aged return to their prime and where the young, struck down too soon, can grow into theirs. It's a place where amputees find their limbs restored and those blown to bits in a plane crash become whole again. OK, heavy smokers may still be battling their addiction and the mentally ill may need some counseling.

January 18, 1998 | Jack Mathews, Jack Mathews is the film critic for Newsday

If you think James Cameron pulled off movie magic by restoring the sunken Titanic to its maiden glory, prepare yourself for another ambitious illusion in 1998. With "Godzilla," director Roland Emmerich will try to turn cheese into gold.

Peggy Stahler was just 4 years old, playing with her toys on the basement floor, when she had her first vision. "I looked up at the stairs and on the top stair--I'll never forget it--I saw these two gorgeous feet. They were white, just like alabaster, and they were shining. And as they came down the stairs, I saw a beautiful figure in a white robe with the most gorgeous light surrounding this person. "His hair was long and brown and he was maybe 12 or 13 years old.

They have visions that come true. They know what you're about to say before you say it. A convention of channelers, perhaps? A roomful of Shirley MacLaines in a parallel universe? Nuh-uh. Just a surprising number of otherwise regular people--hairdressers, office managers, travel agents, CEOs--who routinely describe brushes with the paranormal worthy of a segment on "Unsolved Mysteries." Like the self-made woman who claims to have visited heaven. Twice.

It is a quaint and charming village like many in the county of Kent. Narrow roads weave in from the peaceful countryside and on the main street stand familiar, gentle, picturesque sentries: the parish church, the village school and the pub. Yet, few people come here in search of tranquillity and antiques. They visit because Pluckley is the most haunted village in Kent, a haven of historic hauntings, 12 ghosts and one ghost-buster, an ex-Bobby named Dennis Chambers.

Hollywood has been taking its whacks recently from religious, ethnic and political critics. Lined up next, paddles in hand, are scientists and self-described skeptics. Astronomer Carl Sagan, scientist-author Stephen Jay Gould, editors of scientific magazines and secular humanist leaders are dismayed by what they call pseudoscientific programs on television with little or no input from establishment science.

White House officials defended Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday after a new book revealed that she met with a New Age self-help author and psychic researcher. "All I can tell you is that the first lady's a human being. She reaches out, talks to her friends, talks to others, gathers information," White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta told CBS-TV's "Face the Nation."